Strictly for the fans? No, it's a fine portrait of the artist

Adam Sandler is often discussed in stark, binary terms, yet after watching ‘Happy Gilmore 2’, his latest Netflix sequel, Louis Chilton wonders if the star deserves more nuance

- By Louis Chilton

It often seems like there are two Adam Sandlers walking the earth. Sandler One is the populist clown, titan of film comedies such as Happy Gilmore, Click and Grown Ups – the man who, over the past 30-odd years, has built himself an empire of the lowbrow. Then there is the seldom-seen Sandler Two – a performer of craft, depth and credibility, who emerges every so often to star in critically acclaimed auteur projects such as Uncut Gems, Punch-Drunk Love and The Meyerowitz Stories. Always these two Sandlers wrestle for dominion - and never the twain shall meet. This, at least, is how the strange phenomenon of Adam Sandler is often framed.

At a glance, Happy Gilmore 2, released on Netflix last Friday, fits snugly into the Sandler One bracket, what Roger Ebert once dismissed as “those moronic comedies”. The film is a sequel to 1996’s Happy Gilmore, in which the Sandman plays a golfing savant with rage issues; the sequel was produced as part of a multi-film deal with Netflix. (It’s a deal that has kept Sandler largely out of cinemas and on the streaming site for the past decade, a partnership estimated to have earned the actor half a billion dollars.) Like many of his films, Happy Gilmore 2 is a broad, spoofy comedy, riddled with celebrity cameos and slapstick gags. Reviews have been middling in a way that’s typical of Sandler’s Netflix era: The Guardian described it as “strictly for the fans”, while